Domain Name System (DNS) records typically expire from a DNS resolver's cache (typically managed by the device operating system) after a short time-to-live period specified in the record. The short time-to-live period allows web site administrators to change the IP addresses of their servers without worrying that users will try to contact the servers at the old addresses and receive an error. However, when such requests are made over time in a mobile network, the repeated queries consume mobile network resources and consume mobile device battery life.
This is a concern for mobile devices where resources are limited since the constant connections and disconnections increase the amount of signaling network traffic, which lowers the performance of the network overall, and puts the pressure on network operators and providers to increase network bandwidth and network access. To date, carriers have been able to invest in 4G and LTE networks to boost network capacity in hotspots. However, these solutions are only accessible in metropolitan areas and are reaching their limit. LTE and 4G are also showing that the perceived capacity of added bandwidth is causing users and applications to increase usage and data consumption. In the long run, it might add to the congestion problem rather than help.
While mobile or broadband networks may be designed for high-throughput of large amounts of data, they were not necessarily tailored to service the mobile applications that require frequent, low-throughput requests of small amounts of data. Existing networks also do not take into account different types of mobile traffic and priorities of the different types of traffic, for example, from a user experience perspective. The issue has been exacerbated by the rapid increase of the popularity of applications with network-initiated functionalities, such as push email, news feeds, status updates, multimedia content sharing, multimedia content streaming, mobile games and other mobile applications, etc. Furthermore, mobile phones also rely on signaling to send and receive calls and SMS messages and sometimes the fundamental phone-based functions are forced to take a backseat to mobile applications and other mobile clients.